1996 Volvo S40 Reviews

1996 Volvo S40 2.0 2.0 from Sweden

Summary:

Good starter car for a single or pair

Faults:

Not many things, but those that did were expensive...

* Front left spring broke at approx 144000km. Exchanged both front at the 145000km service. Expensive!!

* Mystical electrical problems like the in-car door-locking thingie stops working when outside temperature is over 15degree C, interior lights flicker when outside temp over 20degree C... This is still not fixed when I sold the car.

* Headlight height-adjusting mechanism worn out (?) and broken. The spares are really cheap (100SEK each) but the job was 1200SEK...

* The local Volvo Authorized garage is consistently bad at fixing things you tell them. Like the fact they forgot to screw back the indicators after fixing the headlights heightadjusting mechanism. They fell out when driving on the highway and I wouldn't have noticed if passing cars haven't had alerted me on the fact. Stopped at parking, screwed them back with a penknife and saw that the hanging iindicators had scraped the painting. After a nasty fax to the garage, they recalled the car and fixed things properly for free.

General Comments:

* Nice handling at both low and high speed. 200kph (and it wanted more, but the straight finished) on the German Autobahn is not a problem, even with the automatic shifter that I had.

* Good fuel average. Driving outside cities averages at about 7,4 Liter/100km with full load and two passengers. In-city about 10Liter/10km. This is with the 4speed automatic shifter in standard mode. Sport-mode increase the numbers somewhat.

* 2.0-liter 140bhp is somewhat rough and needs revving up to and over 3000rpm to really show-off. Below 3000rpm is not bad, but not anything to go Ohh! and Ahh! about.

* The Cruise Control is great. It keeps the speed gently w/o accelerating or slowing down harshly, as I've seen in other car-brands.

* The trunk opening is too narrow and I kept tearing the rubber packing when loading wider-than-usual cargoes, like shelves.

* Overall a great car, even though people say that the Belgian and Netherlands-built cars are a total disaster, and that the Mitsubishe-base is inferior.

1996 Volvo S40 SE 2.0 16v from UK and Ireland

Summary:

A luxurious Tank with a need for speed

Faults:

The computer tripped before a start up. The fuel system cut out not allowing to start the engine, this error was rectified by Volvo at a cheap cost.

The immobiliser activated in rush hour traffic, this cut off the engine obviously. The hassle of moving the car was more frustrating than waiting for Volvo to pick it up and repair it (I also happened to crash the courtesy car that day, writing off a two year old DB7, ouch).

General Comments:

The car is very comfortable.

There's plenty of power from the engine for a two litre. My top speed was 131 MPH.

Even though the car is a smaller Volvo it still weighs in at 1610 KS. This is an advantage at handling the road which is second to none!

Volvo is renown for building cars strong enough to absorb the impact of a scud missile. Though think about the damage you'll cause ploughing into another car, especially cars like a DB7 which is worth £100,000. This is why the car is a group 15 insurance.

1996 Volvo S40 CD 1.8i from UK and Ireland

Faults:

Now at 42,000 miles. On my 3rd set of front tyres. At 30,000 miles needed new pads and discs. At 25,000 the vanes in the catalytic converter came loose, needing total replacement.

General Comments:

Overall - impressed. Main problem is time for parts, 1 week delay for discs to be flown in from Sweden! 35.00ukp for plastic wheel trim (luckily it's a company car). However, comfortable, well equipped, airco/cruise/cd player etc. I really do miss a rear wiper though.